


the afterlife you save may be your own

by avoidfilledwithcelluloid



Category: Quantum Leap
Genre: Gen, M/M, ghost fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 09:21:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5451572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avoidfilledwithcelluloid/pseuds/avoidfilledwithcelluloid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam finds a ghost in the basement and, of course, decides that this ghost is going to be his best friend. But when project Star Bright is about to be shut down and his friend's afterlife threatens to be stuck in an abandoned building, Sam and Tina have to start taking names and busting ghosts in order to save all of friendship. Also, there is kissing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is big time mongo huge for me: this fic is the longest thing i hv ever written. i am so tired but so happy that it's done. i hope it's up to everyone's expectations? anyway. thank you to e v e r y o n e who heard with open ears me whining abt writing this. thanksssss a zillion. 
> 
> TRANSLATION FOR ALL THE GREEK MUMBO JUMBO:
> 
> 1\. Ναι, λιγάκι means "yes, a little"  
> 2\. ἀνάγκᾳ δ’ οὐδὲ θεοὶ μάχονται means "Not even the gods fight necessity"  
> 3\. Ευχαριστώ means "thank you"
> 
> as always, i hope you all enjoy the fic and if you really enjoy it please leave a comment. :^)

In the bowels of Star Bright was the boiler room. It was old and the only feature of the lab space that couldn’t be scraped to make room for more servers. Also, according to Tina, the boiler room was haunted.

“Not just haunted,” Tina said and snapped her gum. “It’s a perv ghost. Whistled at me when I was trying to find the vending machines.”

“The vending machines are on the third floor,” Sam didn’t look up from his laptop. Tina’s feet were crossed at the ankle on top of the desk and she tilted one foot so her toes knocked against the screen of Sam’s Powerbook. “And ghosts don’t exist. Stop doing that. It’s gross when you touch my stuff with your toes.”

“Don’t be a baby, Doctor,” Tina said and knocked his screen again. “Look, I know it’s haunted because, and I’m not bragging or nothing, but the Martinez side of my family is very sensitive to the supernatural.”

“Uh-huh.”

“My aunt once witnessed a goblin stealing her prayer candles.”

“Wow.”

“The goblin became her lover.”

“How interesting.”

“Are you listening to me Doctor?”

“No,” Sam pressed the enter button. The screen flickered, saving his work. “Look, if I check the boiler room will you stop telling everyone that it’s haunted?”

Tina shrugged.

“Only if you find out its not haunted,” she popped her gum. “Which it is.”

“Mm,” Sam hummed, shutting his laptop. “So if I do this does that mean you’ll enter all the new reports on the craft that reconnaissance picked up the other night?”

“That’s not what I said,” Tina said and took her feet down from the desk. The reports, in manila folders spread haphazardly on their shared desk, stared balefully at the both of them. Sam used one finger to push them toward Tina giving her a wide eyed look while doing so. Tina made a noise like disgust in the back of her throat and snatched up the reports.

“I hate entering the data from reconnaissance,” she grumbled. “They never include good notes on the builds of the ships.”

“Oh yeah well,” Sam shrugged. “That’s not their job you know. That’s engineering.”

Tina sighed loudly.

“The dream,” she whistled. “Playing around with unidentified and top secret toys instead of playing hunt and peck with paperwork about them,” she jabbed her finger at Sam. “You better hold up your end of the bargain. Go find the ghost.”

Sam knocked his head back and groaned. With a burdened air he got up from his swivel chair, flopping his long limbs into upright positions as though he was losing a war with gravity. Tina rolled her eyes at Sam and then she snapped her fingers. With one hand she pulled open her desk drawer and rummaged. From the tiny tin drawer Tina lifted a beat up looking rectangular machine with a meter on the front of it. There was a fading set of measurements under the meter window and on the top was a short antennae. When she held it out to Sam he regarded the little hunk of metal cautiously like he was worried it might explode on him.

“What is that?” he asked and Tina grinned.

“It’s an EMF meter,” she said. “I made it myself. Should detect any ecto-activity that’s going on down there. You should take it.”

Sam took the EMF meter from Tina’s hand and held it gingerly in his right hand. With his left he ran a finger across the measurements.

“This looks like a temperature gauge,” he said and Tina shrugged.

“A lot of gadgets lost their lives to make that little thing,” she said in a grave voice. Sam’s hold on the meter became more reverent. He understood the meaning of creating things and in that moment felt that he was carrying a little piece of Tina with him.

“I’ll be careful with it,” he said and Tina laughed.

“Don’t be weird about it Dr. Beckett,” she said and winked. “Now leave me alone. You got a ghost to find.”

…

The steps to the boiler room were skinny. Sam took them one foot at a time, body turned sideways to fit in the narrow walls.

“This room was designed for goblins,” he said to the collar of his shirt, head tucked down to take up less room. “Tiny goblins that steal prayer candles.”

With one hand gripping the rail and the other one holding the homemade EMF meter, Sam winced as his nose scrapped against the wall. The stairs flattened into the concrete floor of the room and when he stepped down he found that he had to hunch to fit.

“Had to be a goblin room,” he said, flicked the switch on his meter. “Had to be the _only_ room on the premises that I can’t fit in.”

The meter sputtered, warming up, and Sam glanced around the space. The pipes which lined the walls were copper. They rumbled with the sound of various gases being flung through them and creaked with the weight of their task. At the center of the room was the heater, a large, swelled machine that looked like some sort of children’s television show villain. The heater’s grate was like the long fangs and the twin meters above it the glaring red eyes of every monster that had hidden in the dark of Sam’s old room.

 _The boogieman_ , he thought and then the meter began clicking. It made a high whining noise and when Sam moved it around the room the sound didn’t stop. In fact, it grew louder with a sudden jerking of the machine in his hands. Sam stumbled back and started to flick the machine off and on. The same result came each time: the whining and shaking grew and grew.

“Who are you?” he said to the room, to the ghost that he knew couldn’t actually exist. Even as the machine cried out he was compiling reasons to explain away the noises. A faulty part in the heater expanding energy enough to fool the EMF reader. The machine could have been picking up some of the signals sent out by the servers in the room above. A feeling of panic noosed itself around Sam’s throat as he tried to reason with his head. There wasn’t a ghost. No monsters. No boogieman.

“What’s it to you?”

Sam’s skin turned to needles at the voice, floating and rough, that echoed next to his ear. He jumped back and in the process smacked the back of his head to the ceiling. The pain was a white point radiating pain. The ghost, if that was what it had been, didn’t show in front of Sam’s eyes although they had gone hazy from the spikes stabbing through his brain. Instead, the voice continued its rolling monologue beside Sam.

“Nice little doohickey you got there tree trunks,” the voice said and the EMF reader was tugged out of Sam’s hand. “ _EMF._ Oh, that’s fancy. You got some fancy tech there kid.”

“Who,” Sam coughed, his head having dislodged some dust from the ceiling and into his throat, “What are you?”

“Who? The name’s Al. What? I’m a ghost,” Tina’s EMF reader was floating in front of him. His stomach was a tight knot dunked in cold water, contracting with every bob the machine did in the air. “You know. A dead guy.”

“A Ghost,” Sam repeated, capitalizing the g in his head, and stretched out a hand to the air. “If you’re a ghost why can’t I see you?”

“Takes up too much energy,” the EMF reader was flung into his stomach, smacking against it and making him groan on impact. “Spectral mumbo jumbo you don’t wanna hear about. You can hear me, not see me is the gist of it.”

“You can’t create a physical form?” Sam could hear a little whir in his ear as he started filing away everything Al said.

“I didn’t say I _couldn’t_ ,” Al made a noise like his fur had been rubbed the wrong way. “I can manifest. I just don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“Do you look like that red head with the nice rack?” Sam shook his head. “That’s why. I ain’t here to help some big doofus write his senior thesis. Now scram buster. You’re scaring away the ladies.”

With a wheeze, the meter began to slow its frantic clicking and then, in a final low moan, the machine went dead. Sam smacked the side of the machine. It only gave out a wheeze and the dial flickered. Frustrated, Sam shoved the EMF reader in his back pocket and started shouting instead.

“Where are you?” he yelled into the empty room. “Hey. Hey! How did you do that? How did you disappear?”

Sam waited. He tapped his foot impatiently and watched the heater puff with the pointed focus that had won him seven doctorates. Eventually there was a cough from the other side of the room and Sam leapt on the sound.

“Is that you? Al? Where did you go?”

“Ugh,” Al’s voice was followed by a chorus of pipes hissing steam. “I didn’t go anywhere, okay?”

“Then why—“

“I wanted you to go away,” Al snapped and Sam took an indignant breath with his arms crossed tight to his chest.

“I’m not going away.”

“I can see that.”

“I have questions,” Sam said and then, hands going to his pockets, his face went slack with realization. “I need my notebooks. I have to record this.”

“If you are gonna play twenty questions with me you had better make it worth my while,” the pipes whistling flattened into a whine. “A sort of ‘I butter your corn you butter mine’ dealio.”

“I’m not buttering anyone’s corn,” Sam said but raised his eyebrows. He had thought of something. “But I do know a deal we can make.”

…

The office he and Tina shared was tiny: about the size of an oversized matchbox was what Tina said. Sam was shoving as many notebooks as he could under his arm, EMF reader tucked into the back pocket of his jeans, when Dr. Eleese decided to check on the both of them. Tina swiveled around to face their supervisor but Sam, distracted, kept at his gathering. Dr. Eleese coughed.

“What is Dr. Beckett doing?” she asked pointedly at Tina. With a tiny shrug, Tina went back to filing her nails. She was on the third finger of her left hand with each nail filed into a slick and shining oval.

“He’s getting all his stuff ready to go see his ghost boyfriend,” Tina said and Sam shot her a look.

“He’s not my ghost boyfriend,” he said and jammed another textbook under his arm. “He is a spectral phenomenon that I am trying to record for generations to come. And anyways, how would someone date a ghost? That’s just flat out ridiculous.”

“You mean like how the existence of ghosts is ridiculous?” Sam looked over his shoulder at Dr. Eleese. She was leaning on the door frame with frustration in the line of her mouth, arms crossed over her lab coat. Sam tried to compose his face into something that didn’t look like he had eaten an entire lemon.

“Ghosts are not ridiculous,” he said, turning back around to root around the desk for a pen. “What’s ridiculous is that anyone would date a ghost. Ghosts aren’t even, they aren’t— it’s not like they are an actual person.”

“Oh don’t tell your boyfriend that,” Tina said and grinned into her nail file when Sam grunted unhappily in response.

“Don’t you all have work?” Dr. Eleese shook her head and gestured at Tina and Sam with her hands still in her lab coat pockets. “Like normal intern things? Maybe filing stuff or getting people coffee? Maybe doing something about the lab incident reports?”

Sam scoffed, not even looking behind himself to acknowledge Dr. Eleese’s question and Tina threw her head back laughing.

“Doctor,” she said, huffing out harsh breathes between her laughs, “between the two of us there are eight doctorates, two Masters in mechanical engineering and a Masters in Classics. Us getting coffee would be like asking a world renowned pianist to play chopsticks.”

“I can play the piano,” Sam said. Tina rolled her eyes. “What? I can. I can play more than chopsticks.”

“You speak Greek?” Both Tina and Sam looked over at Dr. Eleese. She had a perplexed wrinkle to her brows like she didn’t believe either of them had the capacity to translate the phonebook, much less a crumbling copy of _The Aeneid_.

“Ναι,” Sam said. “λιγάκι.”

“Show off. How’s about you go see your ghost boy,” Tina said and then turned to Dr. Eleese. “Did you come in to ask for coffee? We have a coffee maker somewhere in here.”

“No, I think I’m fine,” Dr. Eleese said as Sam brushed past her, apologizing as he continued to run down the hall. “He’s really seen a ghost, then?”

Tina nodded solemnly.

“A perv ghost,” she said and blew on her nail, another perfect oval, “in the boiler room.”

“Well,” Dr. Eleese folded her arms over her chest. “I guess it’s not the weirdest thing in this building.”

…

The air in the boiler room was stale. Sam adjusted his reading glasses, the light too low for him to go without them. With a pencil he was taking cramped notes while Al hummed an off key version of “Fly Me to the Moon”.

“So I have some new questions,” Sam said and chewed on the end of his pencil. Al huffed and one of the pipes let out a whining swell of steam. “Don’t do that. It’s just a couple of easy questions.”

“Nerd talk later,” Al said. “First you gotta give me what you promised.”

“Oh alright,” Sam rummaged through his notebooks. Beneath a stack of them was a _Grey’s Anatomy_ dog eared and worn on the edges _._ He opened it to the middle and inside was a glossy Playboy magazine. The magazine lifted into the air and Al whistled at the centerfold as it flipped down. There was something still disconcerting to Sam’s brain about the pages of the magazine being flipped through quickly by a pair of hands Sam couldn’t see. He really only had Al’s word that they were even hands.

Their arrangement, tenuous as it was, had worked in Sam’s favor thus far. He would shove a pornographic magazine (collected covertly at the local am/pm with Sam awkwardly handing over cash hoping his mother never ended up needing to shop at a gas station in the middle of New Mexico) into any of the stacks upon stacks of older textbooks he had at his apartment. Then, with the precision of a jewel thief, he would sneak the textbook and the magazine into the boiler room where in exchange for the carnal delights therein Al would play twenty questions with him about the afterlife. Sam often laid in his bed getting cold sweats over Tina finding out he was smuggling porn to the ghost in the boiler room and the creative forms of ridicule that would follow.

“This is a good issue,” said Al. “Real looker on page eighty. She’s got a great pair of—“

“Stop,” Sam said. “I’m sure whatever you were about to say is gross enough to make me never want to come to this room again.”

“I was going to say,” Al snipped, “that she has a great pair of oven mitts. It’s a housewives issue. Sexy vacuuming, naked baking. Stuff like that.”

Instead of an answer Sam got out his EMF reader. He held it an arms-length away from his chest and the machine started making the high pitched whine it made every time.

“That is so bizarre,” Sam said, lifting his reading glasses to squint at the readings the machine was putting out. “You have a great deal of kinetic energy rolling off you yet it hasn’t disrupted the circuits of the project. Do you have a way of controlling your energy output? Where does your willpower originate from? Have you ever found that the energy makes it difficult to maintain your position in the world?”

“Jesus Christ kid,” Al said. “Control the word vomit.”

“But I want to—,” Sam leaned back against the wall. “This is ground breaking.”

“Most people would call meeting a ghost their worst nightmare.”

“But think about what this says about science as we know it?” Sam said unable to stop grinning. “This is a huge discovery and I can record everything that happens here. What we do with our findings could— could prove the existence of an afterlife! Or even disprove it!”

“Yeesh kid,” the magazine page wobbled, flashing Sam a view of a smiling blonde housewife’s nipple. “Don’t get your tighty whiteys up your butt just because you’ve scanned me a half a dozen times with your homemade microwave thingie. It ain’t like the upstairs is gonna let you use any of this.”

“Well,” Sam shrugged, looking down at his knee where a tear was forming in the denim. “I haven’t exactly told ‘the upstairs’ about this whole research thing. So right now it’s just between us. And probably Tina.”

“Tina’s the cute ginger, right?”

“She redesigned half of the mechanics on this project,” Sam said, rolling his eyes. “But sure. Yeah. She’s just ‘the cute ginger’.”

“Just how far up your ass are your undies?” Sam frowned and refused to respond. “Seems like you should see a doctor about gettin’ those things removed from your colon there.”

“Okay that’s enough,” Sam pulled his pencil from his mouth in a snit and wrote down _Day Six_ across the header of his notes. “Moving on. As a spectral phenomenon, how is you’re able to maintain a sexual drive? Is there a bio-ecto system in place that allows you to become aroused? Does that counter what you’ve said previously about your form being mostly energy based rather than solid, biological substance?”

The Playboy snapped shut with a slap. Sam didn’t look up from his notes but did make a small aside about emotional responses in the margins.

“That’s a very personal line of questioning there Dr. Beckett,” Al emphasized the “d” and “t” of doctor mockingly. “You want to know my measurements too?”

“Give me your shoe size and I’ll guess,” Sam said, fighting off a grin, and when Al laughed he felt a curious warmth in his chest. He pushed his glasses up with one finger and tried to fight the heat coming up to his cheeks.

“Okay so disregard the last question,” he rubbed his eraser over the words then blew the shavings off. “Let’s go in a different direction. How much concentration does it take to maintain a physical form, say like a face or a limb?”

“Whew,” Al whistled. “It depends on the situation. I can create, or uh, project a visual form easily. Then you can see me but can’t touch me and I can’t really touch anything neither. But to make it solid I have to have emotional provocation.”

“Like?”

“Like some noodle armed nerd asking me ghost questions,” Al said and then winced. He sighed, a loud gust of air not unlike the billows of steam coming out of the heater. “Sorry. Uncalled for. Eh, anger works pretty good. Arousal sometimes, if you know what I mean.”

“I can guess.”

“See a pair of legs that go on for days and I can’t help but go full frontal.”

Sam rolled his eyes. Using the heel of his palms he tried to adjust his seating. His legs were awkwardly bent up to support his notebook and starting to ache. The fold of his Wranglers were dark with sweat from the pits of his knees and in noticing this he became quite aware of the long length of his own legs. He swallowed, throat feeling heavy. To distract himself he started writing down prospective questions.

Despite the complication of physics presented by Al’s entire spectral existence Sam still found his mind wandered to other concerns. He was not fully occupied in the science. Instead Sam began to imagine how Al looked, what his features were. In the week that had passed between him finding Al and his current position Sam had assigned many different faces to him. Sometimes he thought of Al as a squat pig featured man in Bermuda shorts and an ugly polo. He couldn’t ever stick with that one, however, as his mind wandered unto the faces of old Hollywood stars. When he heard the smoke stained gristle of Al’s voice he imagined some well-worn face softened by black and white film. Maybe Humphrey Bogart. After meeting Al he had re-watched _Casablanca_ and the image still hadn’t left his mind.

Sometimes he just pictured his brother Tom and it made his heart feel like it was held together poorly with Scotch tape. It occurred to Sam that despite questioning Al for so long, he knew nothing about the past life Al had lived. The thought sat like a rock sunk to the pit of his stomach.

“Um,” he said, clearing his throat. “Al. Why are you haunting the boiler room here?”

“I love the interior design,” Al said and then laughed at his own joke. “Because I died in this place you maroon.”

“Oh, right,” Sam fixed his glasses again. They had started to slip down his nose from the sweat. “Is it too much to ask how you died?”

Al was silent for a good long minute. Sam wracked his brain for any incident reports of someone dying in the boiler room on the project. There would have been something recording it. He would have heard. The idea that he wouldn’t have known, might not have cared enough to listen to the news, made Sam’s mouth run dry.

“Digging deep there,” Al said finally and Sam was hit with a clawing need to be able to see Al’s face. He couldn’t gauge his reaction with only Al’s tone to puzzle over; he need visual cues, maybe even a written sign. “It ain’t much of a story. Senior officer working late gets heat sickness in the downstairs boiler room and falls asleep. Doesn’t wake up. Leaves behind three ex-wives and a whole lotta empty Jack bottles.”

The whistle to Al’s voice had gone right out.

“Al,” Sam started but found he had nothing to finish with.

“Would you believe I was looking for the vending machines?” Al’s laugh sounded full of cavities of rot. “Drunk enough to miss ‘em by a mile but sober enough to wish that I was dead.”

“I-“

“Wasn’t your problem kid. It’s not the worst thing this place has seen by far,” he said like he sensed that Sam was thinking of all the ways he could have helped. Sam took a long look around the room. He came to the eye stinging conclusion that he was sitting in a very large, very hot coffin.

“Enough about me,” Al said. “You. What are you doing here?”

“Here?”

“Not in the boiler room, you nerd,” The annoyance was palpable. “At the project.”

“I wanted to work on something important,” Sam said and was surprised by how honest the answer was. “They almost didn’t pick me you know. I was too high profile with not enough extracurriculars to round the academics out. Too green is what the first person who reviewed my application said.”

“High profile?”

“Oh yeah,” Sam huffed out a chuckle. “Nobel prize and the youngest person ever to get seven doctorates. Cover of TIME magazine. It all adds up to not getting accepted for any of the internships I sent out for. Everyone was too afraid to touch me.”

Al was quiet except for the occasional “hm” issued between Sam’s words. Sam started to scratch at his elbow. Getting onto StarBright wasn’t his favorite story to retell. He had only really recited the ordeal to his mother on the phone and to Tina when she had bugged him about it.

“But there was one person on the review board who stuck up for me,” he said and there was a pause between his voice and Al saying another “hm”. “Some big wig military guy, lots of medals and pull with the higher ups. I was sort of surprised. Usually the military guys hate me. I mean I’ve had to talk to a few of them and they think I’m a hippie or something. I’m not, you know. I’m not a hippie.”

“I guessed,” Al said. “You got the whole ‘right to bear arms’ look going on with those jeans.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Sam said. “But anyway. Yeah there was one guy who pushed the board to accept me so now I’m here. Pushing paper. Talking to ghosts. Really, uh, really fulfilling all those boyhood dreams of mine.”

“You ever get to meet the big wig?” Al’s voice wavered like a sheet of aluminum being wobbled in the air. Sam caught his bottom lip between his incisors and shook his head.

“No,” he said. “I wanted to. I don’t know, it’s like you spend all this time having to push and push for what you want, for people to see you as worth their time. I just wanted someone to push for me. I mean, the only person before this guy who said people should look twice at me was my brother and he’s dead.”

“Car accident?” Al said this like he’d heard a lot of these sob stories before. Sam laughed with a sharp short sound.

“Nope,” he said and rubbed his nose with his thumb, trying to hide the watery feeling in his eyes. “Vietnam. I think they said he stepped on a bomb, went instantly. I don’t know. They didn’t give us a body: just a promise that he was dead.”

“Oh kid,” the words were heavy with pity’s better sister: understanding. “Yeah. You lose a lotta people in wars. I was in ‘Nam you know?”

“Oh.”

“Five years,” Sam stared at his work boots. There was still grit from the desert in his shoelaces. “It was, well. It was what it was.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Al said and it sounded like he meant it. “You weren’t the one in the cage. You’re just a kid whose brother died.”

The boiler room went quiet. Sam almost wanted to go back to asking science questions but the sight of his own handwriting just looked unbearable. Stupid to think that this would be an exciting little side project. Stupid to think that a person would stop being sad once they died. Sam was terrible at dealing with sadness. He had taken all his and anchored it with a brick before sinking it to the bottom of his thoughts.

“I really do wish I’d met that guy,” he said. “I wish I could have said thanks, you know? Not just for the job which is really nice. I love paying rent and being able to eat, don’t get me wrong. But I just want to say thanks for giving me a shot. For thinking I was worth something.”

“Yeah,” Al said. “I’m sure he knows. Even if you didn’t get to tell him.”

“I always do that,” Sam said. “I think I’m gonna say something to someone and then I miss my chance. I was wrapped up in school when my dad died and I never got to say anything I wanted to say to him. My brother dies before I can tell him he was the push that got me out of Elk Ridge. And then this perfect stranger stands up for me and before I can say ‘Hey, thanks for the support’ he’s gone.”

“You ever hear of kismet?” With a confused tilt of his mouth, Sam nodded.

“Yeah, yeah. It’s Turkish. Means fate,” he said and then, laughing. “’Kiss me Hardy’. That whole deal.”

“Well maybe you and your mystery support guy,” Al said, waving the Playboy around as a gesturing tool. “You guys maybe got kismet. You’ll meet again, when the time is right and the stars align.”

Sam had started to fiddle with the corner of his notebook paper. He folded it over and over until it looked like an accordion. Then he ran his thumb over it. His brain kept whirring over every word that Al had said. With careful fingers his brain combed each sentence spoken between them like it was searching for something. Sam blinked and found he was desperately hot.

“I should probably go back,” he said and then. “You can keep the magazine. Would just be a cat toy if I took it home.”

“You got cats?” Al asked and Sam laughed before nodding. He took the stairs up two at a time and looked back at the empty boiler room before closing the door.

…

“What?” Sam dropped the coffee in his hand which spilled in a graceless arc onto the plastic that covered the office carpets. He hopped away from it but kept looking at Dr. Eleese who, fingers pressed into her forehead to support it, had shut her eyes in blatant annoyance.

“Dr. Beckett you have known for weeks now that the research at Star Bright isn’t going anywhere. Our work here is not something the government feels is important,” she said with a bite to the words that suggested she felt otherwise. “The project shutting down is no more a surprise than, say, the sun rising.”

“But,” he scrambled, trying to pick up the coffee cup he dropped and grab at something to soak up the hot liquid crawling dangerously close to the power strip. He and Tina had overloaded it with so many extensions that kicking the thing would have messed up the entire technological ecosystem of the office. Certainly coffee would spell death to every single modem in the room.

“It’s not a situation with ‘buts’ Dr. Beckett. This is not the most ideal of situations but it is the one we have been handed,” Dr. Eleese side stepped a rivet of coffee and starred down at Sam with the barest glimmer of sympathy in her gaze. From the angle he looked at her from Sam almost wanted to call Dr. Eleese beautiful but at the same time she was telling him he was out of a job. What a contradiction.

He finally got his hand to brush against some paper towels and pressed the entire roll to the pool of coffee in front of him. Dr. Eleese frowned harder with her hands in fists set on her white labcoated hips.

“That is the least effective way to clean something up,” she said and then knelt down next to Sam, taking the paper towels away from him. The fight went out of him and he limply let her take them. She pulled out a few strips, still soggy from Sam’s attempts at damage control, and started using them to pat down the spill. Sam sat back on his calves and buried his face in his hands.

“Sorry,” he said, muffled by his fingers and a bitter sense of defeat. “I overreacted.”

“It’s just how most people react,” Dr. Eleese said her tone measured and with a tinge of disappointment. “I had thought maybe you would be more logical about the entire thing but that is what you get when you assume.”

“You make an ass out of you and me?” Sam glanced up from his hands. Dr. Eleese gave him a pitying smile.

“I already told Dr. Martinez-O’Farrell,” she said, standing up and tucking her hands into her coat pockets. The coat was buttoned up to her collar in a stiff, professional sort of way. Dr. Eleese seemed to radiate stability in her white coat and neat, pulled back hair. Sam wished he had actually payed attention to her instead of running off to the goblin boiler room. That would have been the sensible thing to do; Sam Beckett should have been sensible.

“You two should say your goodbyes now,” Dr. Eleese continued. “I don’t know how long until they have us move everything out.”

“Everything?”

“Oh yes,” she said. “They’re going to knock down the building. To protect the research and what not. So anything important has to be taken to a different, secure location.”

“Everything?” Sam felt his chest go shrink wrapped, “That’s— Everything?”

“Dr. Beckett,” Dr. Eleese shook her head. “If you have six doctorates you should probably learn to use deductive reasoning otherwise it appears as though you have a learning disability.”

“I have seven doctorates,” Sam said, absently like he was being prompted to speak through electroshocks instead of actually putting in the effort. Dr. Eleese breathed out through her nose and her heels clicked out of the room as though she were going to the bathroom to wash her hands of the whole situation. The office became very quiet with just Sam and his thoughts spinning in his head.

The whole building was going to be demolished. If the building was demolished then all the rooms in it would be destroyed too. If the rooms were destroyed then so would the boiler room fall and if the boiler room was gone –

“Al,” he said as Tina came in, rumpled and wearing sunglasses. She made a clicking noise with her tongue.

“Guess who got blitzed last night because she’s going to have to find a new job by the weeks’ end, wishes she were dead and also has two thumbs?” Tina pointed to herself with both thumbs. “It’s me.”

“You shouldn’t come to work hungover,” Sam said. Tina made a motion with her face that Sam assumed was her rolling her eyes. It was unclear behind her oversized rhinestone frames.

“Calm down Doctor,” she said, yanking out her office chair so she could throw herself in it. She plunked her laptop bag down on the desk and propped her legs up next to it. Her hair was thrown into a disheveled ponytail like she had woken up already holding a scrunchie and had just rammed her hair into it until she looked semi-human.. “I’m not that hungover. But I am pretty tired. Not for nothing but it’s kind of shaping up to be the year from hell.”

“I’ll say.”

“I can’t believe they are gonna knock down the building. What a waste, ya’ know?” Tina folded her arms across her chest. “All this research and it’s just gonna be dust.”

Sam made a noise in agreement but it came out strangled and sad sounding. Tina glanced over at him, lips pursed with curiosity and then let out a sighed weighed down with understanding.

“Oh Doctor,” she said. “Your ghost boyfriend.”

“He’s not my—,” Sam started to correct her but his voice died in his throat. Instead he just nodded.

Tina made a sympathetic noise. Scratching at his knee, Sam tried to grasp at something to say. He didn’t have anything after StarBright other than an intangible set of notions about a future project. But there was nothing to back the notions up; just his word and pile of academic papers. No clout or big booming sound to make anyone with money listen.

“Tina,” Sam said and heard Tina hum while she sat up, starting to take her laptop out. “If I asked, would you try to start a project with me?”

“How much you gonna pay me?” Sam snorted and looked up to Tina grinning. She tipped her sunglasses down. “I don’t know Doctor. What’s your project? Do you have funding? Is it just gonna be me and you?”

“It’s, uh, time travel,” Sam laughed nervously. “And I don’t know. I don’t know at all. I thought I’d have more time to figure it out while at StarBright but, ha, that did not work out.”

“No shinola Sherlock,” Tina unwrapped a piece of gum and stuck it in her mouth. “I think all we’ll be able to take from here is some semi-good memories of all night coffee binges and that one time there was a ghost in the boiler room.”

A gear clicked in Sam’s head.

“I have an idea,” he said scrambling to his feet and into his office chair. There were a smattering of old notebooks around their shared space and Sam grabbed one along with a pen. He started scribbling down a series of equations while Tina rolled her eyes. She pushed her sunglasses back up and opened her laptop. Beside her Sam was making tiny noises. His arm moved rapidly, drawing and scribbling along with the chorus of frustrated sounds he made.

Twenty minutes later and Sam started nudging Tina on the shoulder.

“What is it Doctor?” she asked, not taking her eyes away from the screen. Sam just jostled her harder. “Jesus Christ! Okay, okay. What the hell do you want to show me?”

Sam held up the notebook page he had been working on. On it was a ballpoint pen sketch of a box surrounded by different equations.

“Can you build this?” he asked. Tina squinted at the page.

“What the hell is it?”

“Okay so I was thinking,” Sam started to breathe fast, fingers shaking as he pointed at things on the page as though all the excitement in him were blasting out of his skin. “What if we took Al out of the facility? And part of me was like, ‘Okay but how do you move a ghost?’ and then I thought ‘What if we built a box that could trap the spectral energy Al is made up of?’”

“Wait, wait,” Tina waved her hand at Sam trying to make him stop. “Who is Al?”

“Oh,” Sam said and his shoulders slumped a little from the halt to his momentum. “Al is the ghost in the boiler room.”

“You named the ghost?”

“He had a name Tina,” the words came out snootier than Sam had meant them too, “He was a person. Still is a person.”

“He’s a ghost who hits on any lady who goes near the bottom floor,” Tina said and Sam sighed.

“No you don’t get it,” he said. “Al’s like, ugh, he’s so much more than that. Did you know he was an astronaut? Like a real live astronaut who has been to space! And he’s sort of over the top but there’s always something behind it and he has a bunch of stories and sometimes he will just listen to me talk and he laughs at my jokes when I make them and—“

“God. He _is_ your ghost boyfriend.”

“No, no,” Sam buzzed his lips dismissively. “I just care about him. A lot. And I think we should get him out of the building before he gets crushed under a wrecking ball.”

“Okay,” Tina said. “So we’re like ghost busters?”

“We are not the ghost busters.”

“Well,” Tina snapped her gum. “Seems like we are going to _bust_ a _ghost_ out of the building in a weird little doohickey that captures spectral energy. You know, like the _exact plot of Ghostbusters_.”

“Alright we’re ghost busters,” Sam threw his hands up. “But the question remains: can you build this?”

Tina took the notebook out of his hands and studied it. She ran a finger along the lines of the box design Sam had drawn. Brow furrowed, Tina took the pen Sam had put down.

“I could probably work something up,” she said and made a mark on the page. “But we’d have to change this and I don’t know who taught you mechanical engineering but that metal could _not_ hold the amount of energy you want it to contain. Plus these equations, they don’t take the electricity we’re talkin’ into account. You know what,” Tina tapped the pen on the page grinning, “I think I’m gonna have to do this.”

“Seriously?” Tina nodded. “This is great! No, really! If we can build this we can transport Al out of the building and—“

“Yeah, yeah,” Tina spun her chair to face away from Sam, now furiously marking up the page. “Take the excitement out somewhere else. I’ve got to fix all your mistakes on this diagram.”

She tapped the pen on the notebook. When she wrote, Tina made giant loops like she was signing the Declaration of Independence and the way her smooth handwriting looked huge compared to his made Sam feel strangely. Not good or bad. Just strange as though the way their handwriting differed was marking the turn from the ghost box being his project to their project.

Sam liked having things to himself, but the feeling of giving over work to Tina that she was far more suited to than he was didn’t sting as much as he had thought it would. Her long earrings jingled while she wrote. Sam thought about getting his laptop out. Instead he fiddled with his bag in a mock gesture of productivity only to pull out the novel he was reading. The cover was very gothic; big tower with a woman in a half town gown running into a forest of scrawny trees. The irony of having found a ghost in his work place coupled with Sam’s affinity for gothic romances had not escaped him.

“Okay,” Tina said and looked at Sam with the line of her lips serious. “Here’s the thing: we need parts for this ghost box.”

“I assumed that,” Sam said, trying not to sound patronizing but knowing that he was failing at that abysmally. “Yeah?”

“Sam,” she shook her head, resigned enough to forgo formality and call him by his first name. “The resources we would need aren’t easy to find. Especially since we’re both not in possession of military contacts. I don’t see how this project is, you know, actually feasible.”

“Well, uh, I thought maybe,” Sam rubbed the bridge of his nose, “Maybe we could _take_ the resources.”

“Take them?”

“Yes. From the project.”

“You want us to _steal_?” Tina hissed the last word as though she thought Dr. Eleese would walk by at any moment. Sam nodded. He had expected the lack of resources to be a problem and then had weighed his interest and respect for the integrity of government projects. Of course, he remembered how little he actually cared about whatever measly integrity could be teased out of anything that sprung from the forehead of the government and forged on with the plan of petty theft. “How are we supposed to make it look like titanium sheets just vanished? It ain’t like security is lax around here.”

“No but the security programs are,” Sam said. “And anyway, you and I both put in part of the security mainframe together. It’s pretty easy to get into and if one of us is here to play decoy and dismantle the security programs while the other one does the physical work then the technical side of things should be safe. Also, and I don’t want to sound too hammy about this, they are literally moving the entire project offsite. Any missing metal or energy samples can be explained away as, you know, displaced items.”

“That is some impressively faulty reasoning,” Tina said but her teeth were showing through a huge grin. She was vibrating with excitement. “But shit if it isn’t exactly what we can do. Aw, Dr. Beckett. You really want this to work so you can save that ghost boyfriend of yours, huh?”

“Don’t call him my ghost boyfriend,” Sam’s voice was tempered with defensiveness. “I just, you know. I don’t think he should get trapped here. Al deserves to be free.”

“Well I don’t really know the ol’ ghost boyfriend,” Tina said and ignored Sam’s noises of protest. She leaned back in her chair, legs coming up and ankles crossing on top of the desk. “But I tell you one thing Dr. Beckett. Any person who can make you break the rules is someone you should keep the hell around.”

“Well, you know. Ἀνάγκᾳ δ’ οὐδὲ θεοὶ μάχονται,” Tina frowned until Sam sighed and translated the phrase to her. The habit of speaking Greek in pressing situations had yet to reroute itself out of him.

“It’s not helpful when you do that,” Tina said to which Sam rolled his eyes and made a mental note to start saying all colloquial phrases in Greek, “But you got lucky. This ghostbusters box is just weird enough to keep me interested in your little quest. Don’t push it though.”

Sam smiled at Tina in a way that felt incredibly fake.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

…

In the weeks preceding the shutdown of all functions within StarBright, Sam found himself visiting the boiler room more frequently than before. Although an easy enough outcome to chalk up to the fact of his secret little ghost busting plan, Sam couldn’t in good conscience say that was the reason at all. In fact he thought that it might have been any number of reasons.

Sam had begun to hate working in the tiny office even more than he had before. This wasn’t any fault of Tina’s, although she had gotten louder while working on their small ghost box. The project left her elbow deep in mechanics and Tina enjoyed complaining about being elbow deep in anything.

There was also the fact that he was still required to do work until the very end of the project. Left with very few errands to send the boy genius on Sam was relegated to digitizing whatever remaining StarBright files had not already been whisked away to Washington. It was long, tedious work. In lieu of actually caring about the working getting done Sam had made a tiny computer program to sort through the files for him. Tina also complained about this until Sam gave her a copy of the program so she could work full time on the ghost box.

But the real reason, and the one he hated to admit the most, was that Al was the only person Sam wanted to talk to. He had tried, on good conscience, to talk to his mom over the phone. Sam expected to be able to pour out his woes to her only to realize she didn’t have the faintest clue what he was actually doing at StarBright; not just because of his ghost problems but also because StarBright was government funded top secret project in the middle of New Mexico and trying to tell someone about it was like speaking with tiny black censor bars over everything interesting.

She had made polite noises of acknowledgement, told Sam she loved him and then, after hanging up, Sam had felt the exact same as he had before. It made his hands start shaking again, the way they had after Tom had died and he was waiting to hear back from MIT. He thought maybe he would just have to call and talk to someone different, someone who was closer to the world of government funded work. Flipping through his mental rolodex, none of the cards that came up were people he felt comfortable calling up to gossip about work troubles with. And then it hit him: at some point in his academic career Sam had forgotten to make _friends._  

There was a clicking noise from the basement pipes like someone had dropped a marble in them. Sam did his usual inching down the narrow stairs and pulled at the collar of his shirt. The air felt thicker than usual. He had his “Physics and The Universe” textbook with a Playboy inside tucked up to his chest. When his boot hit the boiler room floor it echoed throughout the walls.

“Hey,” Sam said, glancing down as he shuffled himself down into the room. “Al? You down here?”

He couldn’t hear anything but the steady _huff huff_ of the heater’s breathing. The silence was so strange; a large thing with a quality of disappointment that Sam couldn’t quite assign to the pipes or to himself. With its temperature gauge eyes, the heater watched Sam flex the hand holding his textbook in a nervous twitch.

“Al,” he said again. “Where are you?”

“Behind you,” Sam jumped and hit his head. “Little jumpy there buddy? Little on guard aren’t you?”

Despite the tempered anger in Al’s voice, Sam was genuinely excited to hear him and the thrill that lighted on his stomach didn’t dampen when Al kept on in his passive aggressive tone.

“You’ve been antsy lately kiddo,” Al said and Sam shrugged. Rubbing the back of his head he sat back against the wall in his customary place. “Like you got some big ol’ secret you’re keeping.”

“I’m not keeping anything secret,” but Sam was grinning to wide, he could tell. There was no way he could keep the grin down. He hadn’t told Al about the ghost box yet and wanted to keep it that way. He wanted to make sure that the whole ghost busting was a surprise; the problem being that Sam was horrific at keeping secrets and wanted to tell Al about their daring rescue just as badly as he wanted to shock Al with how much he cared.

“You don’t have the face for lying so you should stop trying to pull that shit on me,” Al was speaking softer now without losing the anger behind it. “Now you tell me something. Why are you and Tina stealing titanium from the project?”

If the room had turned to ice Sam’s skin would not have felt as frozen as it did when he heard Al. He opened his mouth to answer, dry tongue smacking as he did, but no words came out. A flush started to build in his cheeks as he tried to come up with something to say next.

“I—,” he started and then his eyes narrowed. “Wait. How do you know that Tina and I stole titanium?”

“I saw you two bozos do it,” Al said. “You know if those fat cats in Washington knew what you were doing you’d get the black list so fast it’d make your head spin. That’s all your damn chances of running a project down the toilet.”

“Look,” Sam said, “They won’t know because we’re not going to get caught and also, how do you know about the project? Did Tina tell you I wanted to do that?”

“ _Did Tina tell me_ ,” Al’s imitated Sam, making him sound like he had a stuffed nose. “No, she did not tell me. I heard you say it and if you keep fucking around with that ghost thingamajig like some sort of—“

“You can leave the boiler room?”

Al went quiet. Sam looked down at where he was holding his textbook and his fingers were shaking. Had Al always been able to hear them? Had everything he had told Al already been something he knew? On the surface Sam could realize and process how obvious Al’s ability to leave the boiler room was. If Al could make himself invisible then there was the definite probability that he could pass through walls giving him leave to walk (or float, maybe, since he was incorporeal) around the project premises.

Underneath the logic, however, Sam still had the bludgeoning sense he had been left out.

“Yes,” Al said. “I can leave the boiler room. I’m a stinkin’ ghost Sam. I—“

“Can you leave the building?” Sam felt his chest constricting.

“No,” Al said. “How could I—“

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sam bit the words out. He started rubbing his thumb repeatedly over the edge of his textbook in tight circles. “You— You could have told me this at literally any point. You didn’t tell me, why? Because you wanted to spy on me?”

“I wasn’t spyin’.”

“You were watching Tina and I this whole time,” Sam said. “And didn’t say anything. That’s what spying is.”

“Well,” Al huffed. “So what if I was? What the fuck does that matter anyway? It’s not like you had some big secret that got revealed. You two don’t even do nothing interesting, not until you started building that ghost bustin’ box which I will remind you is gonna get your career’s ass kicked once someone figures out what you’re doing.”

“It matters because you didn’t tell me,” Sam could feel his eyes burning and his mouth going flat in frustration. “And I thought we were, ah, friends and friends tell each other—“

“What do you want me to say kid?” Al sounded tired. “That I was tryin’ to keep a secret? Yeah, maybe. I just wanted to make sure, ya know, that you were okay. You know. Outside of this heat box.”

“Al,” the words welled up in Sam’s throat and spilled out in a rush. “You can’t do that sort of thing and then get mad because I’m just trying to— trying to surprise you.”

“Surprise me?” his short bark of a laugh made the pipes tremble. “Kiddo, you can’t surprise me. I can see everything you do right on your ugly mug.”

“Hey,” Sam felt a smile traitorously trying to crawl up his face, “It’s not that ugly. Got you to talk to me, didn’t it?”

“Psh,” Al whistled. “You flatter yourself. I was only in it for the nudie mags. You’re just extra baggage.”

“Mmhm,” Sam gave an exaggerated nod. “You seem like you’re pretty concerned about my future for me being extra baggage.”

The heater made a ragged flume of noise and Sam imagined that Al was doing the ghost equivalent of blushing. He made a barrage of tittering sounds like what he wanted to say was being chopped up into tiny pieces and then, in one aggressive grunt, cleared his throat to speak.

“Well,” he said. “You still outta think about what I said. Don’t steal shit from the project kid. It’ll bite you on the ass. There’s a lot of stuff here that— well, it ain’t exactly kosher if you catch my drift. You gotta watch out for yourself.”

Sam’s textbook creaked when he opened it with his face still poised in affection. Of course, Al’s advice wasn’t needed. Both Tina and Sam had more than accounted for every situation that might befall them. Still, the insistent caring that radiated from Al’s voice did funny things to Sam’s sternum.

“Oh I got you something,” Sam said and then checked the date on the Playboy. “October edition, very nice. I’m sure the outfits are very, uh, spooky.”

“Nah nah,” Al said with a dismissive lilt. “I don’t, uh, that is to say that, well, um, I’m not interested. In the magazine.”

“Really?” Sam flicked the pages and then looked back up at where he assumed Al was with a disbelieving expression. “Not even the, uh, Naughty Witches part?”

“Pfft,” Al blew out the noise from between his lips. “I got enough spooks being in this place all the time. Don’t need the added reminder when I’m trying to oogle the ladies.”

“Of course,” as he tucked the magazine back into his text book Sam tried not to smile too widely. “Of course Al.”

“Listen, Sam,” Al’s voice got softer. “I know you got stuff you wanna do after StarBright.”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “But its just a sort of, um, theoretical dream I guess.”

“Tell me about it.”

Sam took a deep breath. People asking about his research outside of StarBright was a rare enough occurrence that his heart clenched at simply being asked about it. A comfortable silence settled between he and Al while Sam tried to gather his thoughts.

“Okay,” he said and leaned back on the wall. “So imagine that your life is a string, okay? And your birth is on one end and your death is on there other. What happens if you take the string and bunch it all up?”

“You get a tangled ball of string,” Al said plainly. Sam snorted and shook his head.

“All the points of your life along the string end up,” Sam pressed his hands together, “touching.”

“And that’s your project?”

“I think if I can figure out how to bunch up the string of time,” Sam said. “I can travel between the points on it.”

“What if you don’t get the chance to figure that out Sam?” Al said. “What if this whole little misson of yours is gonna make that dream impossible? Is that worth it?”

“Of course it is,” Sam said and was surprised that this was the truth. Al just responded with a sigh and told Sam he was tired. After a back and forth of Sam attempting to get Al to answer a few questions Sam gave up trying to weasel answers form Al and left.

The journey back upstairs returned the lightness that had been with Sam before. He was even excited to see Tina with wires wrapped around her hands with the distinct look of madness in her eyes. Something about Al being in on the whole operation made him feel wildly enflamed about building, about creating. Sam liked having someone looking out for him when he was trying to look out for everyone else, even if his someone was a ghost.

“Look who’s back with grins aplenty,” Tina said and frowned harder. “You get the easy job. Program the machine? Pah. Just clicking your little buttons and then you go run off to your boyfriend’s lair to take tea or ghost fuck or whatever—“

“Ghost fuck?”

“Tell me something’ Dr. Beckett,” Tina pointed a screwdriver at Sam as he sat down in his office chair. “You ever had ghost dick in you? You can tell me if you have. I can keep a secret. One time when I was in college some girl spilled coke on our floor and not nobody found out about it because I helped her clean up and never told a soul. Except you. Right now.”

“What?” Sam shook his head, looking the other way so he wouldn’t have to see Tina’s mock serious face, “No, jeez. I’ve never had a ghost dick in me Tina. Why in the world would you think that I was— And with Al? No, no way.”

He knew that his cheeks were getting red and he knew Tina could see. At least she had the good grace not to say anything out loud although when Sam turned to her again Tina had a glint in her eyes that said she could see right through him.

“Anyway,” she said, breathing in deeply to continue her rant. “Your job is a cake walk. Meanwhile I’m in here risking _life and limb_ to make this little ghost box. You know how many times I got shocked today? I got shocked _twelve times_ today Dr. Beckett.”

“Wow,” Sam opened his laptop. “That’s a high number of times to get shocked.”

“I’m aware of that,” Tina huffed out through her nose. “Point is, I’m doing all the heavy lifting and you need to help.”

“I do help. I was the one who got the titanium.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tina waved her hand like this was peanuts to her. “That ain’t what I’m talking about. Come down here and help me solder.”

“I don’t know how to solder,” Sam complained but he got down on his knees. Tina gestured at the metal pieces she needed and he, in thick unfamiliar workman’s gloves that smelled like old men’s shoes mixed with rotten garlic (“You ain’t the only one getting hot and heavy with someone at the Project, Doctor,” Tina told him to Sam’s horrified face), would hold the piece in place while she used a mini soldering tool to keep the box together. The box looked more like a backpack albeit a solid titanium back with a large green hole in it. Once the machine was finished the hole would be covered by a locking device that would be able to open and close on any ectoplasmic material that entered it. Inside was another, smaller box lined with a material that Tina had assured Sam could hold the kinetic energy of a ghost.

“Okay that should do it for now,” she said, setting her tools down and sat back. Sam ran a finger along the box’s surface. He felt the bizarre pride of teamwork burn in his chest.

“We need to make one more run,” Sam said. “I need some of the panel wiring from the operation room for my processing device. Can you spare tonight?”

“Ugh,” Tina groaned with her head tilted back. Her earrings jingled when she pulled it back upright. “Yeah, yeah. Just gotta tell the boy toy not to wait up for me.”

“You’re the best Tina,” Sam said and she grinned despite the corners of her mouth looking tired.

…

Project Star Bright in the night time promised more of its mysterious purposes than the linoleum tiled halls did during the day. Holding a flashlight in one hand and his walkie talkie in the other, Sam tried to step lightly toward the operating room. Never entirely sure of the use of the operating room, Tina had told him that whatever they did in there required a lot of excess wiring. There had been a few lab reports of botched experiments but nothing that caught Sam or Tina’s eyes. Tina said that most of that stuff got processed through internal affairs anyway. Her boyfriend, a programmer with bad breath, apparently was shy with details about the projects activities. Sam didn’t really care. As long as he was able to snip a few wires without someone yelling at him Sam could handle secrets.

The door wheezed when he pushed it open. Sam held his breath, as he did every time, with an anxiety in his stomach about being caught. Instead there was just the steady whirr of all the still operational machines.

“Okay,” he said, pressing the button on his walkie talkie. “I’m in the OR. You got the panel deactivated? Over.”

Instead of Tina’s voice he heard the smacking of her gum and then a long low sigh.

“Yeah, yeah,” she said. “Its disabled. You can cut the square panel to the right of the monitor on the silver table. Over.”

“Kinda spooky in here, ain’t it?” Sam started at the sound of Al’s voice. He turned around expecting to see a form but instead there was only Al’s voice. He coughed before he started laughing. Of course Al had followed him.

“Are you going to come with me everywhere now?”

“Only when you’re playing boy detective around the top secret project quarters,” Al said as Sam got down on his knees in front of the wall. There was a square held onto the wall with screws. Sam pulled his screwdriver out of his back pocket and started to work on pulling the panel off.

“You really shouldn’t be here kid,” Al continued. “Its bad news. They got these places bugged up to the gills. I know you and the missy think you’ve got these guys fooled but—“

“Al,” Sam said. “Quit worrying. How would you even know what they installed in here? Tina and I built half the security in this building.”

“And who built the other half?”

“People who aren’t as smart as I am,” Sam wedged his fingers under the panel already free of screws. “And who didn’t expect me to be finding—” he grunted and pulled hard on the panel, “pieces for an ectoplasmic container. I’m going to be fine Al.”

“Don’t get mad at me for trying to help you not get tossed on your ass,” Al grumbled. “It ain’t like you’re helping yourself so well.”

“Oh stop it,” Sam said and tugged harder. “You’re just being a worry wart.”

“I am _not_ a worry wart Sam,” Al said indignantly. “You just— You know I’m just trying to— Well I guess I just care about—“

“Got it!” Sam felt the panel loosen under his fingers. It sprung free with another hard tug and the wires coiled along with its fall. Sam knocked himself back onto his ass. He slapped his pockets.

“I forgot my wire cutters,” Sam said and moved to pull his walkie talkie out before he saw something move out of the corner of his eye. It was a fast movement, something he would have missed if he hadn’t reached for his walkie talkie. He turned sharply and in the doorway of the operating room there was a tall dark figure.

“Hello Dr. Beckett,” the figure said. “I think that we all need to have a talk.”

They stepped forward and the tumble of brown curls over her shoulder gave Dr. Eleese away. Sam struggled to get up with all his limbs shaking. Behind Dr. Eleese he could see Tina standing looking just as freaked out as he was. He hoped Al wasn’t watching. The last thing he wanted was to hear him gloating.

“So this is what you two have been up to,” Dr. Eleese said and both Tina and Sam refused to meet her eyes. It felt almost like being called to the principal’s office if Sam could imagine what that felt like. He’d never been in enough trouble to get sent there.

“Stealing government property, defacing the electrical wiring of an operating room and—,” she took a deep breath and pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose, “hacking into a government monitored security system. At what point did you two consider your own careers? Or was that just an obstacle in the way of whatever big idea that you cooked up?”

“Dr. Eleese—“ Tina said but Dr. Eleese cut her off by raising her hand.

“Don’t try to excuse your behavior,” she said. “It’s not worth the air you’ll waste.”

“I was the one who did it,” Sam blurted out. “I— I convinced Tina to help me and I pushed her into doing everything. I just wanted to, uh, to—“

“I said save it Dr. Beckett,” Dr. Eleese tucked her hands back into her lab coat pockets. “I don’t care who did what. I only know that you are both in a giant pile of shit and now I have to explain to the project directors why our brightest interns were caught dismantling government property.”

“Dr. Eleese,” Sam tried again, hoping for a different result, but his next words were cut off by a loud clamor down the hall. All three of them started at the sound and Tina rushed to look out the OR door.

“Holy shit,” she said and then glanced back at Sam and Dr. Eleese. “Someone knocked over those weird green canister things. You know—,” she waved her hand while peeking around the corner again, “the ones that look radioactive.”

Dr. Eleese’s posture went still and Sam saw an almost imperceptible wave of nervousness pass over her face. Hands still in her pockets, Dr. Eleese quick stepped to the door. Tina backed away to let the doctor fit into the doorway herself and went to stand next to Sam. He looked at her and could see that she was just as stiff as he was. At least they were going to get fucked over together. Then, from the corner of his eyes, Sam saw a man shimmering by the door behind the one Dr. Eleese was standing at. The man peeked out the door nervously then looked over at Sam and winked.

“Al,” Sam breathed. He hardly had time to take his friends’ visage in. Instead his heart was pounding dents into his ribs and his brain was racing to find a way to get out of the room.

“You two need to go,” Al said. He was gesturing out the door with a cigar and Sam glanced at Tina. She was still staring into space, face painted with fear. She couldn’t see Al or hear him, or perhaps was pretending not to do either thing. Muscles in his arms jumping with anticipation, Sam grabbed Tina’s hand and tugged her toward the door.

“What the hell are you doing?” she hissed but Sam couldn’t answer. He was too busy running past Dr. Eleese, whose attention was so focused on whatever was going on down the hall that she didn’t turn to see them racing past her. Sam paused in doorframe and let go of Tina’s hand. While she kept running, he looked briefly at Al’s physical form. He was so iridescent that Sam could hardly call whatever he was seeing a physical form but something tugging in his chest told him exactly who was floating next to him.

“Ευχαριστώ,” Sam whispered to the ghost.

“What?” Al said but Sam was already continuing to move. He glanced back, once, to see a tower of canisters oozing something green tumbling down the hallway. Sam looked forward again. That wasn’t his problem.

…

No one was talking about the incident at Star Bright but it had been implied by the emails sent to both he and Tina that they were not welcome at the facility. Not that there was really a facility to come back to. The entire building had been shut down after it had been found out that not only had the mysteriously toxic substance within the canisters been spilt all over the main corridor but several of the high level security clearance rooms, which Sam had never been privy to the secrets of, had been broken into. A great deal of information had been deleted including, as Sam found out in the email, the security tapes of him and Tina breaking into the project’s supplies. Apparently there were a great deal of cameras that they had been purposefully kept unaware of and now were wiped completely clean of all data. Something about a translucent goo short circuiting the hardware was imbedded in the email and Sam read this part with an amount of spiteful glee.

Despite the email’s tone, Sam took from the vague way it covered all the details of the facility break in that neither he or Tina were being implicated as the culprits. There was also the problem of a few high priority specimens breaking loose which was keeping the directors and higher ranking staff too busy to care about reprimanding a couple of interns who built a ghost box in their spare time. Actually, the most relieving thing in the whole ordeal was that it seemed as though none of the higher ups had any idea about the paranormal exploits going on in their project.

Slightly less relieving was the inescapable thought that Al was still in the building and now Sam could not see him anymore. In his apartment building Sam was slumped on his couch watching a re-run of Dr. Phil with his ginger cat, Donner, purring on his lap. She pressed her head to the palm of his hand every time he would stop petting her, too busy staring at the dead air to the left of his TV screen. Sam couldn’t stop thinking about Al. It wasn’t obsessive thought per say but for some reason he was unable to stop worrying that somehow he had doomed Al to never escaping the terrible coffin of the Star Bright project space.

Donner bumped his hand again and Sam gave out a weak wheezing sigh, leaving his hand as still as it was. On the television Dr. Phil was emphatically telling a women hunched over and crying that she needed to move on from the mistakes of her past.

“Harder than you think Dr. Phil,” Sam said to the TV and then was thoroughly embarrassed to have been talking to the TV. Donner jumped off his lap and ambled off to scratch on their cat tower.

There had to be a way to fix things. Something that would bring closure to the whole ghost mess. Al being out there, still restless and along, gave Sam a stinging feeling in his stomach. He got up to pick up the phone in his kitchen. Leaning his hip against the counter, Sam flipped through his address book to find Tina’s number. The book was worn around the edges but Sam couldn’t let the frayed little book go, not with its cover picture of John Deere tractor that his dad had said would remind him of home or with the fading note on the inside from his mom telling him good luck out in the world. When he was going through the pages there were a lot of blank spaces.

Tina picked up on the third ring and sounded deliriously drunk.

“Hello?” she said, voice picking up into a question at the end. “Sam?”

Sam felt a grin crawl on his face at the sound of informality.

“Hey Tina,” he said, twisting the phone cord around his finger. “I wanted to ask you something.”

“Mm,” there was the sound of something breaking in the background. “Oh shit. Uh gimme a second to step outta here. This bar’s a shitshow.”

Sam listened to the soft sounds of Tina walking, pushing past people and excusing herself. Once she was outside the noise around her voice became quieter. Her breathing was heavy, puffs that were bookended by a sound like teeth chattering, and Sam remembered, suddenly, that it was closer to November than he had thought.

 “Oh Tina,” he said. “You don’t have to stand outside. It must be cold as hell out there.”

“Shut up Sam,” Tina snipped. “I ain’t turning into an icicle cause’ of some fall wind. Now what’s up?”

“I wanted to know,” Sam said, looking down to where Donner had started curling around his feet in a ginger squiggle, “if you got the ghost box out of the office before we left.”

“Uh,” Tina hummed. “Well shit. I don’t remember.”

“It’s a giant green and titanium box Tina. You would remember.”

“Well then I guess I don’t have it,” her voice was sharp and Sam felt bad for his sarcasm. “Look, Sam, I know it was important to you but fuck. We got fired, like, in a big way. Maybe it’s time to just move on okay? I’m already sending my resume out. I mean, not right now, ya know, but in the morning probably.”

“I can’t,” Sam turned, back against the counter, and the phone cord became twisted up further in his hand. “I really just can’t move on. Tina, we have to get the ghost box and we have to get Al.”

“Have you ever given thought to the idea that, like,” he heard the shuffle of boots and a loud sigh on Tina’s end, “maybe your ghost boyfriend doesn’t want to leave?”

“Of course he wants to leave.”

“Didja ever ask him?”

“Um,” Sam glanced back down to Donner. She looked back at him with a tiny judgmental cat face as if saying _Well isn’t that embarrassing_. “I, uh, I didn’t.”

“Yeah,” Tina said. “I sorta figured. You know, maybe you should ask people what they want before you go on assuming? Just for like, you know, future advice.”

“Thanks Tina,” Sam said and there was a short silence between them. The back of Sam’s throat was starting to constrict with a great and sucking fear.

“Okay Doctor,” she said and it hurt more than he had thought it would to hear her call him doctor again. “Have a good night. Maybe I’ll see you again, okay?”

“Okay.”

The click of the receiver served as a thoroughly underwhelming end note for the evening. In the background Dr. Phil was handing tissues to the woman crying. Sam let himself slide down against the bottom row of cabinets. He buried his face in his arms with his knees pulled up to his chest.

“Ah shit,” he mumbled into his sweater sleeves. “I have no idea what to do.”

This was new territory to explore. Sam had literally no functioning plan for whatever he was going to do next. Donner rubbed her head on his pant leg and Sam curled a hand over her neck, scratching with an apathy that didn’t sit well in his bones. Every time he tried to formulate a plan to move on, a plan to restructure, he only thought about Al stuck in the boiler room. Al would be in there forever. He would wander the building, probably, but only up until the whole thing was knocked down. Or worse, Sam thought to torture himself further, Al would just move on before Sam could. Maybe Al was only waiting for Sam to leave so he could get on to the other side.

Sam sniffed, rubbed his eyes with his sleeve and prayed that he wouldn’t cry. The last thing he needed was to cry over a ghost that he wouldn’t see ever again. He had barely even seen Al as a person. The strangest part of seeing Al, just for the brief moment, was how familiar he had looked. The sort of familiar that came from seeing someone’s picture and then meeting them in person: that had been the way seeing Al had felt. Studying the back of his hand, Sam squinted and tried to draw up the memory of Al’s face.

“C’mon eidetic memory,” he said the places where his hand bones raised his skin. “Don’t fail me now.”

Then the memory sprung out at him. He had been looking at the pictures of the project’s board of directors to pass the time until Dr. Eleese came in so he could give her his reports, and was reading all the names. Most of them he recognized from the first rejection letter they had sent him. There was only one name that he hadn’t seen a signature from.

“Admiral Albert Calavicci,” he said to his cat. Sam flexed his hand to see the bones move and thought about how the man in the picture on the wall had looked simultaneously trustworthy and like a weasel involved in petty rodent theft. He fitted the face he had studied before with the one that had briefly appeared to him at the project. Somehow both Als, the one who was in his dress whites holding his Admiral’s hat and the one who read Playboys the way some men read Voltaire, had the same odd tired quality to them. They weren’t happy.

He made a fist and, with his fingernails cutting into his palm, Sam began to make a plan.

…

Maybe he had missed it the first time he had broken into the project, but there was a definite creepiness to the walls that gave Sam the shivers.

“Calm down Beckett,” he told himself, holding his flashlight out in front of himself and trying not to let it shake. “There’s nothing creepy in here. Except a ghost. And maybe some sort of evil creature that the government made and left here to guard the building.”

Sam let out a hard breath. At least he could put up a good fight against the evil creature, who probably didn’t know martial arts. Maybe. He tortured himself with visions of a huge hulking monster doing jujitsu while inching down the hall. All he needed was the ghost box and then the mission could move smoothly. Sam cursed how far in the building his and Tina’s office had been.

The thought of Tina gave Sam a twinge of sadness. He felt the loneliness of being without a partner in crime like an apricot pit in his throat. At the very least she would have made fun of his burgling outfit. Sam hadn’t had anything that said _burglar chic_ but he did have a black turtleneck. Combined with his jeans Sam found that he looked like a very casual father going to his child’s first flute recital but not, unfortunately, like a person going to steal a piece of expensive ghostbusting technology.

To make himself feel less alone, Sam started humming the _Ghostbusters_ theme song to himself. He made it to the second chorus before he saw the door to his and Tina’s former office. Approaching the door, Sam was startled to find that there was noise coming from inside. It was a loud crashing sound and the dull thuds of someone fumbling with something heavy. He put a hand on the door, took a deep breath and pushed it open quickly.

Sam held his flashlight in front of him with the hopes that whatever was messing around in their office would think he was actually holding a gun but instead just heard someone say, “Oh fuck”, before he switched on the light. In glorious florescent lighting, Tina was kneeling on the ground in full black clothing with the ghost box cradled in her arms. Both of them stared at each other while saying nothing for at least a good five minutes before Tina broke the silence.

“Why are you wearing a turtleneck?” she asked and Sam was snapped from his shocked silence into a very low level of anger.

“What?” he said. “What am I— you said that I should move on! What are you doing here?”

“Um, well,” Tina hesitantly sat up straighter, holding the ghost box to her chest. “I guess I was sort of, um, bein’ a lil’ too hasty.”

“I’ll say,” Sam put his flashlight down and joined Tina on the floor. He was surprised that their office looked the same. A couple stacks of papers were displaced and someone had unplugged their computers; everything else was left alone.

“It’s just that—,” Tina continued. She was rubbing her fingers together and Sam noticed she had painted them pink, “I guess I wanted to move on from this place, ya’ know? I thought maybe if we both sort of got ourselves somewhere else then things wouldn’t suck so much.”

Sam nodded along. He was staring at the ghost box now and wondering if Al could hear them right then.

“I came back to get Al,” Sam said and Tina looked at him like she had already known that.

“I came back to get this old thing,” Tina lifted the ghost box, “and find you so we could get your ghost boyfriend.”

“He’s not my—“ but Sam didn’t finish, already cut off by Tina laughing.

“You’re always such a stick in the mud Dr. Beckett,” Tina said and then stood up, grinning down at Sam. “C’mon. Time waits for no mouse.”

“That’s not even the saying,” Sam grumbled but followed her lead out the door. He flicked the light off in the office and gave it one last nod before closing the door.

They walked in a sort of cautious wide step with just the light from Sam’s flashlight guiding their way. Tina whispered to him that the stairs to the bottom floor were going to be caution taped.

“We gotta cut the tape,” she said out of the side of her mouth as they made their way closer to the stairs.

“Why are you talking out of the side of your mouth? That’s so awkward. I can barely hear you talking.”

“Don’t criticize how I am talking,” Tina hissed and jabbed Sam in the side with a pink fingernail. “You wore a damn turtleneck to burgle a government project. You get no room to complain.”

After snipping at each other the rest of the way, Sam and Tina found the yellow taped off boiler room stairs. Sam used one hand to rip off the weak tape and then gestured for Tina to go ahead of him. The low ceiling still scrapped the top of his head but now Sam could glare jealously at Tina who was able to glide down the steps without any head injury at all. For a moment, Sam wondered why the boiler room stairs were taped off. A hole in his stomach opened up with the fear that someone else at the project had found Al and was not as pleased as Sam had been.

“Al,” he called out into the humid room. Tina put the ghost box down on the floor and started trying to power up the device. Sam stood, arms folded in nervous anticipation, and continued to call out for Al. He could hear the pipes rattling the way they did when Al was getting close but Sam still had no sight of him. The ghost box was wheezing into life and glowing an eerie green.

Tina shrugged when Sam looked over at her with a worried expression.

“Maybe he’s on vacation,” she said and then a snort echoed from by the heater. Sam turned his flashlight toward the sound and there, reflecting the light in waves, was Al’s floating ghost form.

“Al,” Sam grinned into his exclamation and Al raised his cigar with the air of a king greeting his subjects.

“That’s the name,” he said.

Having the time now to take Al’s entire appearance in, Sam found that what he saw was incredibly absurd. Al was even shorter than he had first thought and the fact of this was not helped by his suit which was tailored in such a way that it was voluminous at every part where, Sam assumed, the fabric should have been tight. He couldn’t tell much in way of color since, of course, Al was basically a see through projection of ectoplasmic energy but Sam could see pattern. Under the clown suit Al was wearing a button up with some sort of rainforest motif and a tie so thin it might as well have been spaghetti hanging around his neck. On the lapel of his jacket were two tiny sunglass pins. Sam couldn’t find his words for a moment with the simultaneous reactions of seeing what he had come to think of as his best friend and seeing a truly awful collection of clothes.

“Wow,” he said, mouth hanging open. “You look so much worse than I imagined.”

“Thanks Sam,” Al pulled a small square flask from within his suit jacket out. “You see a guy for the first time and ya’ tell him he looks worse than you imagined. Real sense of tact you got kid.”

“Well I’m sorry,” Sam said, folding his arms so the flashlight’s beam was directed at the floor. Al was still visible, glowing a pale green and taking a swig from his flask with one hand before tucking it back in his jacket with his cigar smoking in the other hand. Tina could be seen as well, lit up by the green of the ghost box she was still tooling with. A question struck Sam.

“Wait,” he said, getting closer to Al. He hadn’t been able to notice before, not being able to see or sense Al physically, but the closer he got the colder the room seemed to be. “You can drink?”

“Died with it in my hand,” Al patted where he had placed the flask. “Trusty ol’ thing. Never runs out, by the way. Handy dandy Jack Daniels.”

“You shouldn’t drink,” Sam looked disapprovingly at where Al’s hand was laid. “Drinking can cause liver failure.”

“What am I gonna do Sam? Die again?”

“Maybe.”

“That’s god damn impossible Sam and you know that. You’re just nit picking.”

“I still think you shouldn’t drink. It’s a terrible habit. So is smoking. I didn’t know you were a smoker. You could have gotten lung cancer.”

“But I didn’t.”

“That’s not the point,” Sam shook his head. “If I had known—“

“If you had known you woulda never shut up about it and then where would you be? Still yackin’ to me about clean livin’ with nothin’ to show for it.”

“Well maybe if you weren’t always _invisible to my eyes—_ “

“Shut up,” Tina groaned from where she had the ghost box humming loudly. “Both of you shut up. Do you wanna see the ghost box work or not?”

“Please,” Al said, gesturing between Sam and Tina with his cigar. “I would love to see the machine that got you two yahoos fired.”

Tina grinned and put her hand into the box to press the power button. The faint glow the box had been emitting went a bright lime green, washing the entire boiler room in its eerie light. From the center hole a hologram platform appeared that was the size and shape of an overturned water bucket. Sam couldn’t stop smiling. The ghost box worked. Months of planning, construction and a small amount of felony theft had all paid off to see the tiny box glow.

“So, uh,” Al said with a small shake to his voice, “How does the doohickey work?”

“Okay so you are going to stand on this,” Tina pointed to the platform, “and then the machine’s gonna suck ya’ down—,” she brought her hands down sharply at a diagonal angle, “and boom! Into the little compartment here. And there’s where your energy is gonna be, all safe and snug in this tiny box.”

“Uh, heh, yeah,” Al scratched his cheek nervously. “Tiny, um, tiny box. Sounds wild.”

“It’s pretty ingenious actually,” Sam said, going up to the box with a grin up to his ears with excitement. “We made it so the box was compact enough that no one would notice it but its strong enough to hold all your energy in. You’re gonna be locked in nice and tight. No residue.”

“Ha,” Al coughed. “Locked. That sounds great Sammy. But, uh, listen. I don’t know if I can deal with those kinda traveling arrangements.”

“Al,” the corners of Sam’s mouth flinched with uncertainty. “Um. Are you okay?”

Al made a noise in the back of his throat before shoving his hands inside his trouser pockets. With a nervous laugh, Al stepped back and his foot disappeared through a pipe. The heater started rumbling as though a bag of marbles had been let loose inside of it. Sam began to feel the beginnings of self-doubt in the back of his head, an unfamiliar and ugly feeling he wished wouldn’t mar the moment. When he looked at Tina her face mirrored the same hesitance only shadowed by the green glow of the ghost box.

“Do you not like it?” Tina asked in a small voice.

“No,” Al said with hunched shoulders as he brought his foot back out of the wall in a stuttered gesture. He took a hand out of his pocket and held it in front of himself, face scrunching up as he waved the hand in an attempt to head off the growing grim looks in Sam and Tina’s faces. “It’s not— Look. I can’t do the whole small spaces schtick.”

“You live in a boiler room,” Sam said flatly.

“It ain’t the tissue box you got there,” Al folded his arms over his chest, cigar getting chewed to bits in his mouth.

“But,” Sam rubbed the bridge of his nose, “I mean, we could get you of here. We’ve been working for—,” his chest felt constricted and shortened his breaths, “For ages, Al. You could get out of this place.”

“I don’t do cages Sam,” Al’s voice tightened with the heater’s angry hum behind it. “Not anymore.”

“What do you think this place is?” Al flinched. The ghost box wheezed and the projection flickered. Between them was a long, uncomfortable silence punctuated by Sam’s soft heaving breaths.

It wasn’t fair. At the very precipice of a new tomorrow Al was shrinking from the horizon. Sam wanted to shake the ghost by his shoulders, if he could have touched them. When he glanced at Tina she was already starting to pack the ghost box up. Sam panicked, the muscles in his upper arms going rigid, and starting shouting.

“Why are you scared?” Sam said in a sharp tone of voice. Tina gave him a pointed look as if to say _Shut the fuck up Beckett_ but Sam’s mouth kept running. He couldn’t leave the bear un-prodded. “This means— Al this means a lot to me.”

“Why?” Al spat. “What do you care if some spook’em gets crushed in here? You have, you know, _things_ to do. Places to go. You’re wasting your time down here.”

“I know when I’m wasting my time Al,” Sam felt his hands shaking at his sides. In his throat were a thousand unhappy toads trying to crawl up and out of his mouth, all of them holding incredibly terrible things to say in their bellies. “Believe me. This isn’t that.”

“Then what is it?” Al started pacing the boiler room floor and gestured at Sam with his cigar. Every time he moved his head passed through a low hanging pipe which whistled with every movement. “Cause’ there ain’t no good reason for you and Miss Ginger down there to be trying to get me to go _anywhere_ in that ugly ol’ box.”

“It’s,” Sam said. “It’s kismet Al.”

Al’s pacing stopped.

“I know it was you Al,” Sam continued, ignoring the questioning look Tina was giving him. “I know that you’re the one who got me on Project Star Bright.”

“Mm,” Al said, fidgeting. “How do you know?”

“I have seven doctorates Al. Give me some credit for being able to put things together,” Sam pursed his lips before letting his mouth melt into a tiny smile. “I know you’re scared. I’m sort of scared as well. I’m scared of being alone and I think you are too. But that’s— that can’t hold you back.”

Al didn’t respond but the hesitance in his face was answer enough. Sam’s fingers fluttered uselessly at his side and he continued, words sticking between breaths.

“I didn’t get to say thank you to my dad or my brother. I just have to live with that,” he took a deep breath. “But I can say thank you to you Al. I can help you, same way you helped me. Please. Don’t stay here.”

Al’s hands went to his face and he groaned, dragging them down to pull at his translucent skin. In the clammy air of the boiler room, Sam could feel sweat forming on the back of his neck. He didn’t think it could all be attributed to the temperature. Al pursed his lips before looking Sam directly in the eye. His gaze was soft, almost like he was watching something heartbreaking. Sam wondered, briefly, if he had always looked at Sam like that.

“Alright,” Al said and snorted. A smile slipped over the grimace he’d had before. “I guess you better make room in that little roach motel for me then Tina.”

Tina gestured to the green platform, still humming from where it was projected from the ghost box.

“It’s all yours,” she said, leaning back on her calves to push herself upright. Al made a hesitant step toward the box. As he came closer, the glow from the box gave him the look of a static ridden TV set. Sam reached out to put a hand on his shoulder but then he stopped, fingers spread, before his hand could fall through Al’s form. In return for his aborted gesture, Al shrugged with an already weakening smile.

“It’s alright Sam,” he said. “Maybe some other time.”

He took the final step onto the green platform. Tina reached down and flicked a red switch on the side of the box. The green platform flickered and Al looked at Sam one last time before he vanished into a swirl of green energy down into the box. Quickly, Tina shut the machine off and closed the top. She glanced up at Sam while she was packing everything back up. Sam had gone pale, flashlight clutched hard at his side. The hand that had tried to touch Al was rubbing his upper arm. Suddenly his turtleneck felt too warm for comfort.

“Do you think he’ll be okay in there?” he asked and Tina nodded. She hefted the ghost box up in her arms before winking at Sam.

“Your boyfriend’s safe as can be,” she said and Sam coughed out a laugh. They went up the stairs and down the hall. Every time Tina stumbled Sam looked sharply at the ghost box, almost as though he could hear Al jumbling around inside. After the fifth time Tina shoved the ghost box into Sam’s chest and took his flashlight.

“I’ll handle the light,” she said and pointed at the box Sam was cradling in his arms. “You hold the box.”

Sam didn’t think he had ever held anything as softly as he held the ghost box. He carried it with gentle hands to his car, not even letting go to wave goodbye to Tina. The box sat in the passenger seat next to him for the whole drive and Sam flicked through the stations trying to find one that screamed “Al” to him. In the end he settled for silence. He reached his apartment complex at sunrise, the first orange peaks of the morning hitting over the stucco roofs of the buildings. Sam reached over to pat the ghost box.

“Okay Al,” he said. “We’re home now.”

 


	2. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the mushy gushy christmas part that comes months after and is for everyone who wants to read mushy gushy sam/al romance-y stuff

It was very hard to hide Christmas presents when the other person in your apartment could walk through walls. Even harder was being able to wrap the gifts without Al knowing. One thing that had become abundantly clear in the time Sam and Al had lived or, more accurately, occupied the same space as each other was that Al was a compulsive snooper. He couldn’t leave any stone unturned or any strange red wrapped object unfiddled with.

“Stop!” Sam said, batting Al’s hand away from a rectangle box. Inside was a sweater for Tina that Al had deemed “too matronly”. Sam thought it looked very becoming.

“Oh what are you gonna do, huh?” Al grinned, reaching through Sam’s arm to tug on the wrapping paper. The feeling was like an icepick through Sam’s arm but less debilitating painful. “Are you the gift police now?”

“Al, stop it,” Sam said, again, and this time tried to give Al his most stern look. Putting his hands up in mock defeat, Al floated away from the gift wrapping area. Instead he moved over to where the cats were batting at the red garland Sam had hung off the breakfast bar.

“Oh you had better not pull that off Blitzen,” Al pushed one of the cats away from the garland. The cat, white except for his black paws, meowed defensively at Al’s cold touch and tried to bite his finger. Al let the cat do it and then laughed when he hissed at him for still being chilly. “Hush up trouble maker. You’re gonna get Sam all worked up before the big party.”

Sam snorted. He lifted his arm to see where he had left the scissor and instead found Donner rubbing against his jeans. With one hand he picked her up and set her in his lap, petting her head while he rummaged for the scissors. Sam felt something cold next to his shoulder and saw that Al was holding the scissors out for him.

“Thank you,” Sam said, taking the scissors carefully so he didn’t touch Al’s hand. He didn’t need the added freezing feeling.

“It’s nothing,” Al made a dismissive hand gesture. “Are you almost done? Tina’s supposed to be here in twenty minutes.”

“Oh calm down,” Sam laughed, putting the final strip of scotch tape on Tina’s gift. “Tina’s always late.”

“Yeah but now Tina’s bringing over that boyfriend of hers. What if he’s punctual?”

“Don’t take that tone. You know Gooshie’s no better with time than Tina is. Just relax, okay? We’re gonna have a perfectly fine Christmas party.”

Sam tried to project calmness, tried to find his chi, but instead his insides were doing a panic laced samba every minute that went by before the guests arrived. He had never thrown a party before, hadn’t even really been to many. Al had gave him some pointers but in the end Sam was still worried that the party would be incredibly “lame”. After all, it was just a nerd and a ghost throwing it. There were no guarantees.

“Uh, Sam?” Al said. Sam hummed distractedly, mind now racing with the terrible possibilities that might befall the both of them. Tina and Gooshie might not even show. Maybe there would be a snow storm and they would be stranded until New Year’s. Sam was busy panicking over a sudden blizzard in New Mexico when Al touched his shoulder, shocking him out of his nightmare.

“What is it?” he asked, trying not to let his teeth chatter. Al took a deep breath. His eyes were darting away from Sam’s, almost like he didn’t want to meet his gaze.

“Uh, well, I thought maybe before everyone got here,” he said, taking his hand away from Sam to fiddle with the end of his tie, “I might give you your present. From me.”

“How did you get me a present?” Sam asked. “Did you leave? Float down to the department store?”

“Hey,” Al said sharply. “You want your present or not?”

Sam had the decency to look scolded. He nodded and Al breathed in through his nose and leaned over. He pressed his cold lips to Sam’s forehead and Sam felt the chill down to the bone. It lasted forty seconds. Sam had kept count in his head.

When Al pulled back, his eyes were still closed. He opened them and, nervously, met Sam’s frozen gaze. It felt like Sam’s tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth.

“It’s a thank you,” Al said. His floating went unsteady and he started playing with his tie again, avoiding eye contact. “For, you know, helping me get out of the boiler room.”

“Thank you?” Sam heard his voice go reedy over the words.

“Yeah,” Al repeated himself. “A thank you.”                                                       

“Can you thank me again?” Sam said and went red when he realized what had come out of his mouth. For a second, Al looked gobsmacked and then he started laughing which made Sam’s cheeks go redder. He buried his face in his hands and groaned. From inside his small cove of shame Sam felt two cold hands push his away from his face. Al kissed him again, on the lips.

“Thank you,” he said and kissed Sam harder. He felt his teeth rattling from the sensation. “Thank you.”

Sam gasped, feeling Al’s hand come around his waist. Al moved and kissed the corner of Sam’s mouth. In the back of Sam’s head he realized he probably should have been kissing back but at the forefront was a hemorrhaging of what reactions to put forth.

“Did you know,” he said, mumbled through Al kissing him again, “that Ευχαριστώ means thank you in Greek?”

Al pulled back a ways and gave Sam a quizzical look. Something seemed to spark in his brain because he started beaming at Sam.

“Ain’t that what you said to me before I saved yours and Tina’s asses?” Sam nodded and Al laughed, leaning to kiss him on the cheek. Sam turned this time to catch him on the mouth. The kiss was like open mouth eating an ice cream cone, if an ice cream cone had wandering hands that were holding Sam’s head steady. When they broke for air Al let out a short sigh.

“Ain’t that a kick in the butt?” he said into the side of Sam’s face. “It’s a big ol’ circle.”

“It’s kismet,” Sam said and Al groaned, rolling his eyes before diving in to kiss Sam again.

Sam closed his eyes and decided on one Christmas wish: that Tina and Gooshie would be late. Very late.


End file.
